... since those responsible for this new translation [NET Bible] are primarily exegetes, our perspective is often so entrenched in the first-century world that we are blind as to how the English reader would look at the text today. Exegetes tend to produce a wooden translation without realizing it.Of course, not all stylists will help produce the same kind of English. A translation team needs to include stylists who produce language of the audience for which that translation is targeted. The stylists who worked on the NLT seem to have been fairly sensitive to current English, although the NLT is less idiomatic than its successor, the Living Bible.
Dr. Leland Ryken is a longtime professor of English at Wheaton College. He has taught many Wheaton students about the literary features of the Bible. Dr. Ryken personally prefers Bibles to be more literal than can typically be produced using only natural, contemporary English language forms. He has written expressing his view that more "dynamic equivalent" Bibles such as the NIV and TEV do not adequately capture the literary features of the Biblical languages. Dr. Ryken was an appropriate stylist for the ESV translation team since that team specifically wished to use a kind of English ("essentially literal") which "stands in the classic mainstream of English Bible translations over the past half-millennium." The ESV maintains the Tyndale-KJV literary tradition with the language updated enough so that many of its users can access the translation more easily than they could the Tyndale or KJV translations.
English Bibles, whether by design or not, are targeted for certain audiences. We can tell from observation of the language of an English version whether it is targeted toward people who understand theological terms traditionally used in English Bibles, such as "sanctification, "redemption," "repent," "flesh," "propitiation," etc. We can tell from the language used whether a Bible can be understood by people who are not part of a faith community. We can tell whether or not a translation team believed that only current natural English language forms should be used in a translation to be used by English speakers today.
No single Bible fits all audiences today. Some versions such as the TEV (GNT), CEV, NCV, GW, and NLT are better suited for those who are not familiar with church language. Others, such as the ESV, NASB, and NKJV are better suited for those who wish to do detailed studies of biblical words. Others such as the NIV, TNIV, NEB, NRSV, NJB, and NET Bible are positioned somewhere in the middle, with potential usage by non-churched people as well as those who wish to use their Bibles for more detailed study.
Stylists with different literary preferences help a translation team produce translations which fit the audiences they most wish to reach.
Henry said:
ReplyDeleteI would see it as a matter of teamwork, and necessary teamwork.
Absolutely! For the best translations, there must be one or more individuals who can revise the wordings of exegetes that that they are in good quality English. It is not a matter of adding frills. Such revision is an essential part of the translation process. Those who do this work on a translation team have not always been valued as much as they should be. And it has often been the case that the need for stylistic input has not been valued. An accurate translation that is unnatural is not an adequate translation, nor is a natural translation that is inadequate. Definitely there must be teamwork to bring both exegetical accuracy and English literary quality to a translation.
Thanks for making it clear, Henry, that this part of translation is not just "frosting on the cake".
I note that the "14 literary critics" are in fact 14 "Literary Critics and Other Consultants", and they apparently include all who have worked in any of those capacities from 1965 to the present, ove 40 years. I don't know where you get the suggestion that NIV came from one of your "bad, big 100 person committees"; this same web page makes it clear that the translation committee consisted of 15 people. I agree that they haven't produced a translation with a high literary quality. But that was probably not their intention.
ReplyDeleteI am glad to see from you at least some faint praise of TNIV!
I can agree that "most modern bible scholars don't know how to write". But I do wonder if you are using any kind of objective criteria in your claims that Tyndale and KJV are literarily much superior. Could this in fact be simply because KJV, and Shakespeare, have for generations been presented as and presupposed to be the pinnacles of English literary quality, to the extent that they have now become so more or less by definition, at least the definition that you and others hold to? The problem is that the majority of the current generation, to the extent that they have any criteria of literary excellence, have very different ones, ones which are by no means so favourable to KJV and opposed to the kind of style found in NIV.
Wayne and Henry, I agree with you about the importance of teamwork. This implies that literary stylists need to be part of the translation team and working with the translators from the start, not, as alleged about NIV, to be brought in as a final stage after the translators have largely completed their work. I think that's what you mean, but I wanted to make the point explicitly.
In the Nyungwe translation project there is a review stage in which the translation leaves the translators and is looked at by church representatives. Most of what they do is making sure it "sounds good." It is a helpful step because translators are often too close to the source text and their own version of it and thus have difficulty objectively evaluating their work. The suggestions always return to the translators for them to implement depending on their appropriateness. But the responsibility for changes rests ultimately on the translators. I can't imagine a translation project where "stylists" could come in after the translators have done all the hard work and just change things on a whim.
ReplyDeleteSometimes a single "stylist" is used in African translations but given the emphasis on collaboration in Africa that doesn't happen often.
Matthew, you wrote:
ReplyDeleteGood heavens! Did you actually graduate from any type of higher education school? That quote is appalling. Any of my professors would have written in nice big red letters on my paper "Your source and you appear to differ as to the meaning of these words!" Sarcasm by a professor is never good when writing grades on your paper. Ouch! Observe quotes carefully, or at least spare us worry by quoting far less often.
Matthew, in answer to your question, I graduated from the University of Cambridge (yes, the same one where Kermode was a professor, although English was not my subject), and from London Bible College. As for the rest of your remarks, I can extract little meaning from them except that you are being critical in a way which looks as if it might be offensive. If you want to criticise my use of language, please make sure you do so in clear language yourself. Anyway, to quote more fully, Anonymous wrote "And if committees are bad, big 100 person committees are worse: the NIV and ESV are among the most the most flagrant offenders", which certainly implies an understanding that NIV was translated by a big, bad 100 person committee - an understanding which he confirmed in a later comment when he wrote "my reading of Mr. Marlowe's web page is that the supervising committee was 15 people but they outsourced their work to 100 translators". So what on earth is your complaint about my quotation, or your justification for "Your source and you appear to differ as to the meaning of these words!"?
Anonymous wrote: "Disagreement is not name-calling". Indeed, that is true of his disagreement, and I respect the courteous way in which he disagrees. It is unfortunate when others, who are not my professors and so can claim no right to do so, resort to ad hominem sarcasm.
As for "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." - I'm afraid that in my opinion this is appalling English, far too long a sentence for good style (although I do understand it), a misplaced comma after "earth". And that's before I comment on the politics! But surely Ephesians 1:3-12 KJV is a longer sentence still. Meanwhile one day Jefferson's statement will need to be translated, as language change is a fact of life and it is very rare for anything to still be readable by a general population a millennium after it was written.
I just deleted a comment, I realize I am in very bad form. Excuse me.
ReplyDeleteI tried to repost it but it disappeared.
In short, there are several things going on in Jude. First, the Greek text varies considerably for the KJV and the NIV. The NIV is very close to the Greek text which it is based on.
The KJV not only uses a different base text, the Textus Receptus, but it also takes additional liberties with the word order.
I really am not up to discussing the English without the Greek also.
Anon, thanks for your comments on the decline of American education. A lot of this can be matched here in England. So, we agree that typical Americans today are not very well educated and don't have a high reading level. We also agree that improvements in education would be good, although we might differ on the details.
ReplyDeleteI think where you and I differ is in how to address the problem in the context of Bible translation. Your approach to providing Bibles for typical Americans seems to be to give them a Bible in a high literary version of English, which they can't read at all easily, and expect them to struggle through it to come to a limited understanding. If they persist in the struggle, their level of English might improve (although only if the version they are using is in good English and modern English, which doesn't seem to be true of any American versions in your judgment!) On the other hand, many will not persist but will give up rather soon, as I'm sure can be demonstrated. So they will benefit neither educationally nor spiritually.
My approach is a very different one, and I think is the approach which Jesus would take. I would meet these typical people where they are by offering them a Bible which is in the kind of language which they understand well - even if it is not of a high literary quality. I would leave the issue of their literary and general education to others to work on, and make my highest priority their spiritual edification. But that is because I am primarily not an educator but a Christian worker.
Well, all I can say here is that I disagree with "elegance is as important as clarity, and pedagogical value follows hard on its heels". For me, communication of a clear and accurate message is the only thing of real importance, and elegance comes well below them in priority. As for pedagogical value outside specifically Christian teaching, I do not think that that should figure at all as a priority for translators. The Bible should not be used for home schooling except for specifically Christian teaching, and perhaps KJV and other historic versions have their place in the study of English literature - a subject in which I have very little interest.
ReplyDeleteSince we have almost no other work in biblical Hebrew to compare the Hebrew Bible with, I'm not sure what it means to say that "the Hebrew bible is a masterwork of literature... separate from any "message" or "story" one may abstract from it". If you mean that it is a milestone in the development of literature, you may well be right, although that might be partly because it has survived whereas many other ancient works have not. But in the absence (so far) of any objective criteria for assessing the quality of literature, I cannot assess the truth of otherwise of your claim that "the Hebrew bible is a masterwork of literature", except as your personal opinion.
ReplyDeleteBut you share my scepticism about home schooling. I have no objection to children being taught from the Bible as long as they have adequate teaching also from other textbooks in every subject. To get on this world they need to understand even matters like evolution, and they cannot learn about that from the Bible.
As for my translation priorities, I would include "natural" and "acceptable to its target audience" with "clear" and "accurate". If the target audience were one with "high" literary standards, a suitable translation for it would follow those same standards. If the target audience is readers of tabloid newspapers and The Da Vinci Code, a suitable translation for them would have rather different stylistic priorities. And the latter target audience is much larger than the former.